


won't take the easy road

by landofthedamned



Category: Legacies (TV 2018)
Genre: F/F, Non-magical AU, hope is one smug mf, rival race car drivers au
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-08-18
Updated: 2019-08-18
Packaged: 2020-09-06 22:11:10
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,025
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20298754
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/landofthedamned/pseuds/landofthedamned
Summary: The one where Penelope and Hope don't get along on or off the track and Josie gets stuck in the middle of it.





	won't take the easy road

**Author's Note:**

> So here's the deal. This is my first Legacies fic attempt and I have no idea if I should flesh it out as a longer piece or if anyone would be interested in that in the first place. Let me know if you'd like to see a continuation!

Josie Saltzman is not supposed to be in the pit lane.

Hell, she wasn’t even supposed to leave the box suite at the top of the stands. She’s never been good at following direction like that. Rules, yes, those she can do. General laws of common sense and humanity, sure. But when her girlfriend tells her to wait out the race in an empty room with too much champagne and no one to talk to? Yeah, no, she can’t do that.

The VIP badge hanging from a lanyard around her neck was the only thing that got her into the tunnel, the only thing that kept the pit crew from sending her on her merry way when she surfaced in the center of the track and started browsing gearhead heaven. Much like Penelope’s souped up Camry her crew’s tools are marked in deep purple and slate gray and Josie’s toying with what she thinks is called a torx driver when a car roars into the station one over from Penelope’s.

A gleaming black and gold Ford Mustang with the number 07 slapped on the side to be exact. The car Penelope trash talks more than she tells Josie she loves her. The ride that belongs to Penelope’s biggest rival.

Hope Mikaelson.

Josie watches, transfixed, as Hope’s crew fits her ride with new tires and tips a can of gasoline into the rig. Hope tears out of the pit lane faster than she rolled in and hell if Josie isn’t a little more impressed than she should be. 

The car doesn’t make the driver, that’s what Penelope’s told her time and again, it’s the driver that’s the real machine. Josie thinks with Hope it’s a little bit of both. You don’t hold a record like Hope does without a little help from your wheels, and you don’t get to wield a beauty like the Mustang on a track like this without a little precision driving under your belt.

“Peez know you’re down here?” is MG’s way of greeting Josie. He’s got a fist around the microphone on his headset to kill the link between him and Penelope.

“What she doesn’t know won’t hurt her,” Josie tells him with a coy smile. He’s always been Josie’s favorite of Penelope’s pit crew, even if he does look like a knockoff Buzz Lightyear in that purple and gray jumpsuit. He’s got a good head on his shoulders.

“You were never here,” MG agrees.

Josie doesn’t go back to the box after the race.

Penelope lost by a leg and a half. To Hope, as usual.

They aren’t so much rivals on the track as they are Hope, who always wins, and Penelope, who’s always right behind her.

So Josie parks herself at the bar in the drivers’ lounge once it’s over because Penelope always needs time to grumble and stew after a race like that and Josie isn’t ready to hear about how annoying Hope Mikaelson and her illegal mods are. She’s also pretty sure you can’t get away with illegal modifications to your car when vehicles are inspected before every race, but she’s not about to tell Penelope that fresh off a loss.

It takes three whiskey gingers to get Josie’s cheeks warm and make her feel like maybe this whole dating a race car driver thing comes with a few too many theatrics. Sure, they play the rivalry up in the media on orders from the league’s publicists, but Penelope takes her frustrations home with her when it’s all said and done and Josie’s growing tired of being the only sounding board her girlfriend’s got. And okay,  _ yes,  _ the races are fun to watch and the atmosphere at the track buzzes with a kind of excitement you can’t get anywhere else, but that excitement doesn’t even last all the way to the parking lot.

When she goes to settle up (because it’s barely three in the afternoon and she doesn’t want to give Penelope another reason to gripe) she’s caught off guard when the bartender tells her it’s been taken care of.

“But I don’t have a tab,” Josie insists. Only the drivers do and even then she wouldn’t dare drop three drinks under Penelope’s name after a loss.

“She does,” the bartender tells her, nodding over Josie’s shoulder.

It’s like a scene straight out of a movie.

Josie turns to look, wide eyed and curious, color in her cheeks and heat in her veins.

Hope Mikaelson smiles back at her from a couch at a low table and beckons Josie with a finger. 

And Josie goes because all three drinks in her system tell her to, because she’s curious, and because since when does Hope look like  _ that?  _ Logically she knows what Hope looks like, is constantly bombarded with images and clips of her and Penelope wherever she turns on the internet, but she looks different in person. Brighter. Like a beacon in the eye of a storm. Stunning, Josie thinks. Radiant.

“You paid for my drinks,” Josie states as fact when she’s standing before Hope.

Hope, who looks up at her, head at a tilt, wearing a devilish little grin Josie shouldn’t enjoy as much as she does.

“You’re Penelope Park’s girlfriend,” Hope says, steering the conversation in a direction Josie suddenly does not wish to go.

“That I am,” Josie says cautiously. “Josie.”

Hope stands to meet her then with something like fire and deviance in her eyes and Josie can’t stop herself from stealing a look at her lips because up close that smile is truly the next wonder of the world and Josie wants to be the one to explore it.

Dangerous terrain you’re trekking there, something whispers in the back of her mind. Better watch yourself.

“Shame,” Hope tells her bluntly, eyeing Josie from head to toe. It’s a heavy gaze and Josie feels every second of it. “You’d look better on a winner’s arm.”

And then she’s gone, slinking off to the bar.

Hope’s gone and Josie’s left rooted to the ground with her thoughts reeling and her heartbeat thundering in her ears and  _ god,  _ where the  _ hell  _ is Penelope?

  
  



End file.
